I feel like the one key difference between the parties is whether or not you accept that there will be people who want/need free stuff. In my mind, there will always be people who or are either unable or unwilling to work. The question becomes whether you allow that and spend taxpayer money to support those people or you demand personal responsibility and feel that it's unfair that you have to pay so someone else can do nothing. Also, while I think we would all agree that there's a big difference between people who cannot work and people who will not work, that difference always seems to melt away when it comes to actually funding support for those people. Mental health budgets, the VA, addiction treatment - and with that one, you also get the judgment call over whether it's an illness or a personal failing, so even there people don't agree whether it's a "cannot" or "will not".
My personal view is that while there's a sense that it's unfair of some people to essentially get things for free, especially for the "will nots", it's better overall to spend some now and support them rather than to deal with what happens when we don't. Those cuts I mentioned above I believe are a big part of why the homeless situation is out of control in a lot of cities. I know part of it too is exploding housing costs, but part of it is just giving up on people. Now we have things like hepatitis outbreaks, and to me it sounds like fixing the problems now, or even just treating the symptoms of the problem without actually trying to fix it, will cost more than it would have to just try to prevent it in the first place. In the meantime, I think the "will nots" will remain about the same whether we offer support to that group. I don't think a lot of people will just choose not to work in exchange for a basic level of subsistence, like food stamps and a small but safe place to live. I'd be curious to see if there are stats on that from places like Norway that will provide you with housing if you can't afford it on your own, and as far as i know there's no work requirement for that.
It's also why I have never been a fan of the idea that we need to run the country like a business. In a business, you can fire your lowest performers. You can cut costs by laying off staff. You can't do that as a country. It's not like these people can just go immigrate to another country, and they have to end up somewhere. So we end up with a lot of people in prison, where we don't try to rehabilitate them and therefore have high recidivism rates (and spend a small fortune per prisoner per year to house them), and we end up with a lot of homeless people.
So, yeah. I think it's unfair, but I also think it's better to swallow one's pride on that and just do what needs to be done to get the best possible outcome, and part of that is paying taxes and handling these situations upfront.
Aside, I can think of three people I've known that rely very heavily on government assistance. One is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, the other two are Trump supporters.